SF hotel workers demand contract

Several hundred UNITE HERE! Local 2 hotel workers picketed all day and early evening on Sept. 7 at the entrances of the upscale Westin St. Francis hotel on Union Square in downtown San Francisco. The workers, many of them Asian, Black and Latin@, have been working without a contract for over two years now.

Over a dozen “Class A” hotels, managed by the San Francisco Multi-Employer Group, locked out the workers for just under two months in 2004. Since then the union has urged a boycott of these hotels. The Local 2 workers recently voted 93 percent to authorize a strike if current negotiations fail to produce a fair contract. Major issues include affordable healthcare benefits, subcontracting jobs and very serious workload problems. For more information: www.hotelworkersrising.org.

—Report and photo by Joan Marquardt